CHAPTER XXII 



Latin America 



I 



HAVE long felt that I owed a debt of gratitude to 

 many friends in Latin America. When my old friend 

 Wilson Popenoe, who is building the Pan-American Agri- 

 cultural School for Mr. Samuel Zemurray and the United 

 Fruit Company near Tegucigalpa, said, "You should write 

 up your experiences in Central and South America," I 

 made up my mind to do just that. Experiences of travel 

 in South America, however, have inspired books of all 

 sorts — old books mostly good, and modern books, a few 

 good, more indifferent, and many not worth the paper 

 they are written on. 



I am going to write mostly of friendship, not scenery. 

 Suppose you had been with me when our steamer anchored 

 in the lovely harbor of Bahia in Brazil. I was delighted 

 with the scene, as were my family, but was still more 

 pleased when a handsome young man stepped up to me 

 and said, "I am Afranio's brother." Afranio do Amaral was 

 first my student and then one of my warmest friends. I did 

 not then know that his brother was President of the State 

 of Bahia. He was the soul of courtesy and hospitality. We 

 saw everything from the superb tiles in the Church of 

 Sao Francisco to the market where you can purchase any- 

 thing from a marmoset to a mango. To my dying day I 

 shall remember a red snapper cooked with a hot tomato 

 sauce as one of the most delicious dishes I have ever tasted. 



